Union Membership in Illinois at 16.6%

This is being reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

In 2008, the number of workers belonging to a union was 939,000 in Illinois, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Union members accounted for 16.6 percent of wage and salary workers in Illinois in 2008, compared with the 14.5 percent posted in 2007. At its peak in 1993, the union membership rate in Illinois was 21.0 percent.

Nationally, the number of workers belonging to a union rose by 428,000 to 16,098,000 in 2008. Union members accounted for 12.4 percent of employed wage and salary workers, up from 12.1 percent a year earlier. In 1983, the first year for which comparable national union data were available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent. Interestingly, Illinois has had union membership rates above the U.S. average since 1989, the first year state data were gathered.